Reflections on our identity

What it means to be an American

A couple of years ago, I had a conversation about going on vacation. Sharm el-Sheikh, a popular resort town along the coast of Egypt, came up and I wasn’t at all comfortable with that idea. As in nope, I don’t want to even go for a visit; wrong color passport. I didn’t think I would have any problems inside the resort but I really did have the idea that Americans don’t belong there.

Today that list of places you don’t want to be singled out as an American is long. Many from the US are now going to Europe and posing as Canadians, even buying little lapel pins with the Maple Leaf flag and deciding what the story will be before going. I’m not quite there, I haven’t been made uncomfortable around America’s former friends yet. 

I was telling Sergey and Roger this story and they seemed a little surprised to learn that Americans and Canadians can’t tell each other apart. (We will set Quebec aside for the moment.) With a few exceptions, we share the same accent and clothes. 

Last week I read a story about some moron who decided it was a good idea to walk around in his red, MAGA baseball cap in Spain. The Police had to come rescue him from the crowd. As always, this MAGA played the victim and has no clue why everybody in Spain hates him. Dumbass. For me, the icing on the cake is that this fool was a black male. Does he really think Trump will stop with Latinos?

This is all such a shame. I don’t think the US can survive three more years of Donald Trump. Oh, sure, there will be some large, second-tier country called the United States. All the MAGAs will have their same flag and talk about how the country is great again. Think Brazil or Canada, except lame with shit for brains.  The country that was born in World War II will be gone. Fine with Trump; he wants to annex Canada, invade Greenland, overthrow Venezuela, take Panama, bomb Iran, and control Gaza. Hello? He has not yet completed his first year! His dream is a world ruled by war and imperialism. AND – he was cheated out of the Nobel Peace Prize. Did you know he’s stopped eight wars?

China will get its wish for a multi-polar world where imperialism and big state power rule. Why nations in the Global South think this is a great idea is a mystery to me. I would have guessed they would want a strong UN and equality among nations. To wish to fall under China’s control, they must absolutely hate the US more than I understand. It’s kinda’ like when the Americans voted to take away their own healthcare. Why do you wish for something that you know for a fact will add to your people’s misery?

What it means to be Russian

I am proud of my country, Russia. And I am proud to be Russian.

We, as a nation, have been adventurous enough to expand from Eastern Europe to the Urals to Siberia with its enormous natural resources, and to the Far East and even further, at some point, to Alaska, located on another continent, across the mighty and dangerous Eastern Ocean. 

We, Russians, are a part of the world cultural heritage with something to show, like Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekov. There are others to mention, like the Russian avantgarde wave of artists or Mikhail Bulgakov, quoted by Mic Jagger in his Sympathy for the Devil.

Finally, we were the first to send Sputnik in 1957 and Major Yuri Gagarin in 1961 into outer space!

At the same time, Russia is well known as a state which is very cruel to its citizens, historically. The cult of the ultimate sacrifice for Mother-Russia is still very up to date and I cannot accept it. We suffered enormous losses in the World War II, mostly, in my opinion, due to Stalin’s ruthless attitude to its soldiers and population. No stake is too high…

I think I understand what kind of people rule Russia right now; they are cynical and, again, ruthless, so I don’t want to follow them blindly as they fool all of us in real time. Some time after, Putin, just like Lenin and Stalin, will find his fair place in history books, as a tyrant and, yes, again, a ruthless ruler who didn’t care about the lives of his compatriots, trying to achieve fake goals. At the moment, many of my compatriots follow him uncritically. A result of bad education. Well, again, we know it from history; after Stalin, all his men started to change Russia, trying not to get back to Joseph’s nightmarish times and customs. 

I am laughing at today’s Putin’s sycophants, as tomorrow they will do the same. 

So, being Russian to me is complicated. It is about being proud of my country and its culture. It is also about understanding that we, as nation, could have lived much better. And behaved much better.

Yet, again and again, we are in this vicious circle of autocrats, who corner Russia, and those, who come next, spend decades to drag us from these dire straits. Then, a new hero comes, getting us in trouble again, and the story repeats itself. 

Why do we let it happen? 

What it means to be British….

We are not one thing, but instead a hearty mix of history, humour and habits. We can also appear very contradictory; we are very patient and almost proud when queuing while at the same time spend all that time complaining about the queue…..

We are perfectly happy to discuss the weather with strangers as if it were breaking news, and we are also extremely adept at laughing at ourselves. We expect others to get the joke as well, despite our humour often being dry and ironic, which is of course totally wasted on Americans.

Our identity is, and almost always has been, shaped by diversity. We are a patchwork of cultures and influences, from food to festivals and accents. Each of these adds something new to our shared story, and in an ideal world, our values promote fairness, decency and the freedom to be yourself. Sadly, there are some that are trying their best to destroy all that.

Being British means coming from a place where history meets everyday life and where politeness generally hides passion. We say “sorry” even if it’s not our fault, and we tend to describe disasters as “a bit inconvenient.” 

Abroad, we are generally treated well, and tend to be stereotyped as polite, reserved and considerate, though sadly our youngsters have a reputation for being drunken louts. On a more positive note, we have a pretty strong “Band UK”, with the BBC, Premier League, Cambridge and Oxford Universities, and of course the Royal Family.

And if all is lost, we have one trait that nobody can change. One example is my late, great, father-in-law, who, upon realising his beloved wife was beginning to have contractions with their first-born, uttered these immortal words:  “Let’s not panic, let’s have a lovely cup of tea!”

Yes, no matter what is going on, there’s always time to boil the kettle. You can’t get more British than that.